


In the Quiet Aftermath

by caradoxing (saunteredvaguelydownward)



Category: Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-31
Updated: 2016-08-31
Packaged: 2018-08-12 03:40:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7919149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saunteredvaguelydownward/pseuds/caradoxing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After escaping Taris, Anya Dreyan struggles with her feelings. One-shot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Quiet Aftermath

Somewhere people were screaming. A thousand voices echoed dully in the back of her mind. Anya rubbed at her temples and sighed deeply, before abandoning the bed she had been sitting on. It would take no prophet or genius for her to understand that sleep would not come to her tonight.

The gentle creaking of the starship was comforting but also somehow unsettling to her. Like meeting an old friend who had changed imperceptibly since you last saw them. There was a rumbling sound that came in cycles too, but she hadn’t decided if that was the engine or the Wookie sleeping down the corridor from her.

The peacefulness of it felt wrong. Somewhere cities were burning and people were dying on their behalf. Somewhere, those she had spent her time protecting, destroyed. Somewhere, death. Somewhere, destruction. 

Somewhere, silence.

Here, there are footsteps. The sound bounced around the corridors and if she were in a more cautious mood, she would have worried about waking the others. Her life recently had left little room for caution, however.

_It should mean more_ , she thought. She should _feel_ more than this dim ache, this hollowing out of her chest. She knew it was too much though, rather than too little. That it is a safeguard of sorts, even if a subconscious one. _Feel a little at a time, only as much as you can handle. But keep feeling it until you have mourned them all._ A realization hit her. There would not be enough time. She could swallow her grief and nurse it in the pit of her stomach for a lifetime but it would always be insufficient. _Who will mourn the rest when I am gone?_

She thinks of Mission and feels the shame rise in her cheeks. _Are they even mine to miss?_

Before she realized it, her feet had taken her to the cockpit of the Ebon Hawke. Carth and Bastila were both awake, silent in the seats of the ship. If either had noticed her presence, they hadn’t rushed to show it. There was something that should be said, Anya was sure, but whatever it was seemed to evade her. Outside, the dark was spotted with hundreds of stars, each luminous and distant.

_If they are not mine to miss, why can’t I seem to let them go?_

She, too, says nothing.


End file.
